Clinton On Georgia’s NATO Aspirations

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(Civil.Ge) — Parliamentary elections this October and presidential election next year are additional opportunities for Georgia to show its commitment to democratic values, Hillary Clinton, the U.S. secretary of state, said on May 21.

She made the remarks while speaking at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers with counterparts from four aspirant countries – Bosnia and Herzegovina; Montenegro, Macedonia and Georgia, held on the final day of the two-day NATO summit in Chicago.

Clinton said that this meeting was a reaffirmation of NATO’s commitment to open door policy, adding: “I believe this summit should be the last summit that is not an enlargement summit.”

The U.S. Secretary of State then spoke specifically on each of the four aspirant countries.

On Georgia she said, that the Allies were “very grateful for its contribution” to ISAF and noted that Georgia would become the largest non-NATO contributor to the Afghan operation this fall:

“Georgia has made democratic reforms, and the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections are additional opportunities for Georgia to show the world that it is committed to NATO’s democratic values,” Clinton said.

“We stand firm in our support for Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. We welcome Georgia’s non-use of force pledge, and we call on Russia to reciprocate with its own pledge. We stand by the Bucharest decision and all subsequent decisions on Georgia,” the U.S. Secretary of State said.

The meeting of NATO and aspirant countries’ foreign ministers was chaired by NATO Deputy Secretary General, Alexander Vershbow, who said that these four countries had “a special place among NATO’s partners”.

“Today’s meeting demonstrates how strongly your four countries are linked to the Alliance and how much we want to further strengthen those ties,” Vershbow told the foreign ministers from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Georgia.

Civil.Ge

Civil Georgia is a daily news online service devoted to delivering quality news and analysis about Georgia. Civil.Ge is run by The UN Association of Georgia, a Georgian non-governmental organization, in frames of ‘National Integration and Tolerance in Georgia’ Program financed by USAID. Civil Georgia is also supported by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

4 thoughts on “Clinton On Georgia’s NATO Aspirations

  • May 26, 2012 at 7:21 pm
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    This Peter person spouts irredentist propaganda that is supported by no one. Greeks have a valid concern for the safety of their Macedonian region when you have a group of Slavs who were “Cold War” indoctrinated by this idiotic dribble.

    If you are interested in Macedonia, and the real Macedonian people, I suggest you research the subject yourelf, and be careful not to fall into the Slav-Macedonian traps and irredentist propaganda that litters the internet.

    Reply
  • May 29, 2012 at 4:03 pm
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    @FYROM ultra natioanlist

    Hey Peter what did your elected government officals mean when they used to assure everyone before being recognized….

    ‘We are not related to the northern Greeks who produced leaders like Philip and Alexander the Great. We are a Slav people and our language is closely related to Bulgarian.’ – FYROM´s Ambassador to Canada Gyordan Veselinov, Ottawa Citizen Newspaper, February 24 1999

    ‘We do not claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great.’ – FYROM’S Ambassador Ljubica Acevshka, speech to US representatives in Washington on January 22 1999

    “The creation of the Macedonian nation, for almost half of a century, was done in a condition of single-party dictatorship. In those times, there was no difference between science and ideology, so the “Macedonian” historiography, unopposed by anybody, comfortably performed a selection of the historic material from which the “Macedonian” identity was created. There is nothing atypical here for the process of the creation of any modern nation, except when falsification from the type of substitution of the word “Bulgarian” with the word “Macedonian” were made.” (Denko Maleski, former Minister of foreign affairs of FYROM from 1991 to 1993 in an interview to FYROM newspaper Utrinski Vesnik)

    “We are Slavs who came to this area in the sixth century … We are not descendants of the ancient Macedonians” – Kiro Gligorov, FYROM’s first President, Foreign Information Service Daily Report, Eastern Europe, February 26, 1992
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBB8UjOHG_8

    Reply
  • May 29, 2012 at 4:07 pm
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    The crackpot DNA claims of Peter demonstrate the growing fascism in FYROM, Their entire modern so-called “Macedonian” identity is based entirely on pseudo-scientific racial mixing arguments.

    An irony they have missed is by now revising their ethnic narrative yet again (now claiming to be direct descendents of ancient Macedonians contridicting their own government of just a few years ago)…. and ancient Macedonians self-identifying as Greeks… FYROM natioanlist are unwitting claiming to be Greeks.

    Identity is a human right. Not identity theft.

    Reply

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